PowerMacs as almost dirt cheap prices

Sharp-Shooter

Active member
Hi There,

I was thinking of moving from PC to Mac and was surfing on the ebay, and have lately come across some "too good to be true" deals there.

Example is powermac G5 dual- 2.5 Ghz, for almost under US$1200 or around that price...so guys kindly tell me..

is some major shift happing in Powermac computers, thus people are selling theirs at these prices or will I be taken for a ride? Should I go in for one of these or wait for something good that coming in soon? Any particular series of PowerMacs I need to look out for?

Thank you all in advance

Cheers
 
That auction looks pretty shifty to me. Especially the part where they want you to contact them directly about getting a good "deal" If you want to see "obvious scam" search for "canon 600mm" to see like 10 people trying to sell the same non-existant high dollar Canon lens. I reported this to EBay but they haven't done anything about it.
 
Check into that. I had a friend that sold his 23in apple monitor and G5 2.0 for 2,900.00. So there are good deals out there. Just make sure that it's a photo from the persons home, not a picture taken off of a site. Just remember that paypal is not your pal !!!!
 
Hmm so....twocik23 are you saying if i pay - PAYPAL , and if i do not recieve the goods, paypal will not refund me the money, will i be not covered or protected.

Yes tigeba. these deals on ebay do really look fishy to me. thanks for you inputs guys....
 
Yeah, be cautious. If you do decide to purchase ANYTHING off of ebay, get insurance. Trust me.
 
One of the biggest tip-offs to a scam is if the seller insists you email him before bidding and puts his email in the listing. This is almost a guaranteed sign that the seller has stolen the eBay ID he is using. Also, photos of the "actual machine" inside someone's home are no longer enough of a verification -- it's too easy to swipe legit photos from other auctions and use them. You have to be really savvy when it comes to buying high-ticket items off of eBay. I'm bought two PowerMacs off of there and would do it again, but I've also been dealing on there for almost seven years. Also, always check the seller's feedback and see what else they've sold. If they currently have two or three computer listings up but have only sold antique books in the past, chances are it's a stolen ID.

The rambling stops now.

Fox
 
Why would someone sell a Power Mac for less than the student discount on the open market means that it's too good to be true and BUYER BEWARE!

If you want a killer deal, find someone that works at Apple.


Question.. Why the move from PC to MAC?
 
Thank you all for your inputs.

DC: I am thinking about the move from PC to MAC because have heard a lot about FCP and its industry standards, fast computing speed of the mac etc.

Am still debating within, whether to build my own PC which I can, but am just worried if that give the same performance as the MAC.

Can anybody suggest a decent configuration for a PC for editing, mostly documentaries, no fancy effects, basic cuts, crops and transitions.

But it should support 25p editing!

Cheers
 
I'll agree with you on all points except "fast computing speed of the mac"..

I just replaced the guts of my machine with the Asus A8n-SLI Deluxe / AMD X2 4800+ / 4 Gig OCZ Ram / GeForce 6600 GT OC video card (total: $1600) and was blown away after running a few Photoshop benchmarks against the MACS. I'm still waiting for the MAC owners to run the After Effects render to see how they compare in that arena.. (maybe some adventurous MAC owners here will run this Benchmark: http://www.toolfarm.com/tutorials/nightflight/nightflight.zip ?)

For the photoshop test you can see the AMD results vs. the Dual Proc 2.7 and Quad (ProMAC) 2.3's here: http://forums.wakeboarder.com/viewtopic.php?t=51625


Anyway, I have never done 25p editing so I cannot help you there, but if you do decide to go with an editing suite that is PC based (AVID, Premiere, Vegas, etc..) then you can get the biggest bang for your buck by going with the AMD Dual Core Processors.
 
From all the test and benchmarks I've seen for Pcs Vs the Mac i've found that PCs can run just as good as mac's but people skimp on the parts they buy and expect a 500 dollar pc to beat a 3000 mac. One of the benefits of mac is the fact that apple makes almost every or at least has a part in it's selection/construction and that offers a level of compatibilty that Pcs don't have.
 
DCERVENKA said:
I'll agree with you on all points except "fast computing speed of the mac"..
Yah, G5 is old tech. That's why they are switching to Intel.

One compelling reason to get a Mac (I hear everyone screaming "blasphemy") is you can use Motion to create better-than-average template based motion graphics in real time instead of slaving away in After Effects. Obviously, Motion isn't a substitute for a real compositing program. But, in a pinch, you can crank out some good looking stuff without a lot of time or effort. For some clients, the "canned graphics" thing is okay and it saves them money over custom designs. Motion looks a lot better than other "canned graphics" solutions.

www.apple.com/motion
 
thisiswells said:
Yah, G5 is old tech. That's why they are switching to Intel.

That will be interesting... However I found that in the PC world with AMD vs. Intel Dual cores. The AMDs came out on top in both their Athlon and Opteron series..

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=paxville&page=7
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=paxville&page=8



After Effects does have a steep learning curve so I can see how some users will benefit from the easy-of-use of the Motion app (review by dv.com: http://www.dv.com/reviews/reviews_item.jhtml?category=Software&articleId=171204405)..
 
DCERVENKA said:
AMDs came out on top in both their Athlon and Opteron series..

I don't think it really matters. The X-Box 360 has 9.6Ghz in combined processing power (3x3.2Ghz).
Every one of our computers performs like a turtle in comparison.

After Effects does have a steep learning curve so I can see how some users will benefit from the easy-of-use of the Motion app
It's not so much the learning curve of After Effects... It's the SPEED of Motion. I've been working on a pilot the past few weeks as camera/editor and quite possibly this could be a one man show, depending on the budget. The ability to quickly throw together motion graphics that look expensive could mean I get to be the guy. It's a competitive advantage over the in-house people at the local affiliate.
 
Since I got a Mac, I have a lot fewer headaches about getting stuff to work. It may not be the fastest, certainly not the cheapest, but all the stuff works the way it should. No more Saturday afternoons spent trying to figure out why a driver won't load or why I'm getting blue screen of death.
 
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